VICTORIA went up to her room and locked the door behind her. She sat
down on her small basket trunk and stared out of the dormer window. She
was still all of a tingle; her hands, grasping the rough edges of the
trunk, trembled a little. Yet she felt, amid all her perturbation, the
strange gladness that overcomes one who has had a shock; the contest was
still upon her.
'Yes,' she said aloud, 'I'm free. I'm out of it.' She hated the dullness
and ugliness which the Holts had brought with them from the Midlands.
The feeling came over her almost like a spasm. Through the dormer window
she could see the white frontage of the house opposite. It was repellent
like Mrs Holt's personal devil.
The feeling of exultation suddenly subsided in Victoria's breast. She
realised all of a sudden that she was once more adrift, that she must
find something to do. It might not be easy. She would have to find
lodgings. The archway in Portsea Place materialised crudely. She could
hear the landlady from 84 detailing the last phase of rheumatics to the
slatternly maid who did for the grocer. Awful, awful. Perhaps she'd
never find another berth. What should she do?
Victoria pulled herself together with a start. 'This will never do,' she
said, 'there's lots of time to worry in. Now I must pack.' She got up,
drew the trunk into the middle of the room, opened it and took out the
tray. Then, methodically, as she had been taught to do by her mother,
she piled her belongings on the bed. In a few minutes it was filled with
the nondescript possessions of the nomad. Skirts, books, boots,
underclothing, an inkpot even, jostled one another in dangerous
proximity. Victoria surveyed the heap with some dismay; all her troubles
had vanished in the horror that comes over every packer: she would never
get it all in. She struggled for half an hour, putting the heavy things
at the bottom, piling blouses on the tray, cunningly secreting scent
bottles in shoes, stuffing handkerchiefs into odd corners. Then she
dropped the tray in, closed the lid and sat down upon it. The box
creaked a little and gave way. Victoria locked it and got up with a
little sigh of satisfaction. But she suddenly saw that the cupboard door
was ajar and that in it hung her best dress and a feather boa; on the
floor stood the packer's plague, shoes. It was quite hopeless to try and
get them in.
Victoria surveyed the difficulty for a moment; then she regretfully
decided that she must ask Mrs Holt for a cardboard box, for her hat-box
was already mortgaged. A nuisance. But rather no, she would ask the
parlourmaid. She went to the door and was surprised to find it locked.
She turned the key slowly, looking round at the cheerful little room,
every article of which was stupid without being offensive. It was hard,
after all, to leave all this, without knowing where to go.
Victoria opened the door and jumped back with a little cry. Before her
stood Jack. He had stolen up silently and waited. His face had flushed
as he saw her; in his eyes was the misery of a sorrowful dog. His mouth,
always a little open, trembled with excitement.
'Jack,' cried Victoria, 'oh! what do you want?'
'I've come to say . . . oh! Victoria . . .' Jack broke down in the
middle of his carefully prepared sentence.
'Oh! go away,' said Victoria faintly, putting her hand on her breast.
'Do go away. Can't you see I've had trouble enough this morning?'
'I'm sorry,' muttered Jack miserably. 'I've been a fool. Vic, I've come
to ask you if you'll forgive me. It's all my fault. I can't bear it.'
'Don't talk about it,' said Victoria becoming rigid. 'That's all over.
Besides you'll have forgotten all about it to-morrow,' she added
cruelly.
Jack did not answer directly, though he was stung. 'Vic,' he said with
hesitation, 'I can't bear to see you go, all through me. Listen, there's
something you said this morning. Did you mean it?'
'Mean what?' asked Victoria uneasily.
'You said, if I'd asked you to marry me you . . . I know I didn't, but
you know, Vic, I wanted you the first time I saw you. Oh! Vic, won't you
marry me now?'
Victoria looked at him incredulously. His hands were still trembling
with excitement. His light eyes stared a little. His long thin frame was
swaying. 'I'd do anything for you. You don't know what I could do. I'd
work for you. I'd love you more than you've ever been loved.' Jack
stopped short; there was a hardness that frightened him in the set of
Victoria's jaw.
'You didn't say that yesterday,' she answered.
'No, I was mad. But I wanted to all along, Vic. You're the only woman I
ever loved. I don't ask more of you than to let me love you.'
Victoria looked at him more gently. His likeness to her brother grew
plainer than ever. Kind but hopelessly inefficient. Poor boy, he meant
no harm.
'I'm sorry, Jack,' she said after a pause, 'I can't do it. You know you
couldn't make a living . . .'
'Oh, I could, I could!' cried Jack clinging at the straw, 'if I had you
to work for. You can't tell what it means for me.'
'Perhaps you could work,' said Victoria with a wan little smile, 'but I
can't marry you, Jack, you see. I like you very much, but I'm not in
love with you. It wouldn't be fair.'
Jack looked at her dully. He had not dared to expect anything but
defeat, yet defeat crushed him.
'There, you must go away now,' said Victoria, 'I must go downstairs. Let
me pass please.' She squeezed between him and the wall and made for the
stairs.
'No, I can't let you go,' said Jack hoarsely. He seized her by the waist
and bent over her. Victoria looked the space of a second into his eyes
where the tiny veins were becoming bloodshot. She pushed him back
sharply and, wrenching herself away, ran down the stairs. He did not
follow her.
Victoria looked up from the landing. Jack was standing with bent head,
one hand on the banister. 'The only thing you can do for me is to go
away,' she said coldly. 'I shall come up again in five minutes with
Effie. I suppose you will not want us to find you outside my bedroom
door.'
She went downstairs. When she came up again with the maid, who carried a
large brown cardboard box, Jack was nowhere to be seen.
A quarter of an hour later she followed the butcher's boy who was
dragging her box down the stairs, dropping it with successive thuds from
step to step. As she reached the hall, while she was hesitating as to
whether she should go into the dining-room to say good-bye to Mrs Holt,
the door opened and Mrs Holt came out. The two women looked at one
another for the space of a second, like duellists about to cross swords.
Then Mrs Holt held out her hand.
'Good-bye, Victoria,' she said, 'I'm sorry you're going. I know you're
not to blame.'
'Thank you,' said Victoria icily. 'I'm sorry also, but it couldn't be
helped.'
Mrs Holt heaved a large sigh. 'I suppose not,' she said.
Victoria withdrew her hand and went towards the door. The butcher's boy
had already taken her box down, marking the whitened steps with two
black lines.
'Shall I call a cab, mum?' he asked.
'Yes please,' said Victoria dreamily.
The youth went down the drive, his heels crunching into the gravel.
Victoria stood at the top of the steps, looking out at the shrubs, one
or two of which showed pale buds, standing sharp like jewels on the
black stems. Mrs Holt came up behind her softly.
'I hope we don't part in anger, Victoria,' she said guiltily.
Victoria looked at her with faint amusement. True, anger is a cardinal
sin.
'Oh! no, not at all,' she answered. 'I quite understand.'
'Don't be afraid to give me as a reference,' said Mrs Holt.
'Thank you,' said Victoria. 'I shan't forget.'
'And if ever you're in trouble, come to me.'
'You're very kind,' said Victoria. Mrs Holt was kind, she felt. She
understood her better now. Much of her sternness oozed out of her. A
mother defending her son knows no pity, thought Victoria; perhaps it's
wrong to resent it. It's nature's way of keeping the young alive.
The cab came trotting up the drive and stopped. The butcher's boy was
loading the trunk upon the roof. Victoria turned to Mrs Holt and took
her hand.
'Good-bye,' she said, 'you've been very good to me. Don't think I'm so
bad as you thought me this morning. Your son has just asked me to marry
him.'
Mrs Holt dropped Victoria's hand; her face was distorted by a spasm.
'I refused him,' said Victoria.
She stepped into the cab and directed the cabman to Portsea Place. As
they turned into the road she looked back. At the head of the steps Mrs
Holt stood frozen and amazed. Victoria almost smiled but, her eyes
wandering upwards, she saw, at her dormer window, Jack's head and
shoulders. His blue eyes were fixed upon her with unutterable longing. A
few strands of hair had blown down upon his forehead. For the space of a
second they gazed into each other's eyes. Then the wall blotted him out
suddenly. Victoria sighed softly and sank back upon the seat of the cab.
At the moment she had no thought. She was at such a point as one may be
who has turned the last page of the first volume of a lengthy book: the
next page is blank. Nothing remained even of that last look in which
Jack's blue eyes had pitifully retold his sorry tale. She was like a
rope which has parted with many groans and wrenchings; broken and its
strands scattering, its ends float lazily at the mercy of the waves,
preparing to sink. She was going more certainly into the unknown than if
she had walked blindfold into the darkest night.
The horse trotted gently, the brakes gritting on the wheels as it picked
its way down the steep. The fresh air of April drove into the cab,
stinging a little and yet balmy with the freshness of latent spring.
Victoria sat up, clasped her hands on the doors and craned out to see.
There was a little fever in her blood again; the spirit of adventure was
raising its head. As fitful gleams of sunshine lit up and irradiated the
puddles a passionate interest in the life around seemed to overpower
her. She looked almost greedily at the spire, far down the Wellington
Road, shining white like molten metal with almost Italian brilliancy
against a sky pale as shallow water. The light, the young wind, the
scents of earth and buds, the men and women who walked with springy
step intent on no business, all this, and even the horse who seemed to
toss his head and swish his tail in sheer glee, told her that the world
was singing its alleluia, for, behold, spring was born unto it in
gladness, with all its trappings and its sumptuous promise.
Everything was beautiful; not even the dreary waste of wall which
conceals Lords from the vulgar, nor the thousand tombs of the churchyard
where the dead jostle and grab land from one another were without their
peculiar charm. It was not until the cab crossed the Edgware Road that
Victoria realised with a start that, though the world was born again,
she did not share its good fortune. Edgware Road had dragged her down to
the old level; a horrible familiarity, half pleasurable, half fearful,
overwhelmed her. This street, which she had so often paced carrying a
heart that grew heavier with every step, had never led her to anything
but loneliness, to the cold emptiness of her room. Her mood had changed.
She saw nothing now but tawdry stationer's shops, meretricious jewellery
and, worse still, the sickening plenty of its monster stores of clothing
and food. The road had seized her and was carrying her away towards its
summit, where the hill melts into the skies between the houses that grow
lower as far as the eye can see.
Victoria closed her eyes. She was in the grip once more; the wheels of
the machine were not moving yet but she could feel the vibration as it
got up steam. In a little the flywheel would slowly revolve and then she
would be caught and ground up. Yes, ground up, cried the Edgware Road,
like thousands of others as good as you, ground into little bits to make
roadmetal of, yes, ground, ground fine.
The cab stopped suddenly. Victoria opened her eyes. Yes, this was
Portsea Place. She got out. It had not changed. The curtains of the
house opposite were as dirty as ever. The landlady from the corner was
standing just under the archway, dressed as usual in an expansive pink
blouse in which her flowing contours rose and fell. She interrupted the
voluble comments on the weather which she was addressing to the little
faded colleague, dressed in equally faded black, to stare at the
newcomer.
'There ain't no more room at Bell's,' she remarked.
'She is very fortunate,' said the faded little woman. 'Dear me, dear me.
It's a cruel world.'
'Them lidies' maids allus ketches on,' said the large woman savagely.
'Tell yer wot, though, p'raps they wouldn't if they was to see Bell's
kitching. Oh, Lor'! There ain't no black-beetles. I don't think.'
The little faded woman looked longingly at Victoria standing on the
steps. A loafer sprung from thin air as is the way of his kind and leant
against the area railings, touching his cap whenever he caught
Victoria's eye, indicating at times the box on the roof of the cab. From
the silent house came a noise that grew louder and louder as the
footsteps drew nearer the door. Victoria recognised the familiar
shuffle. Mrs Bell opened the door.
'Lor, mum,' she cried, 'I'm glad to see you again.' She caught sight of
the trunk. 'Oh, are you moving, mum?'
'Yes, Mrs Bell,' said Victoria. 'I'm moving and I want some rooms. Of
course I thought of you.'
Mrs Bell's face fell. 'Oh, I'm so sorry, mum. The house is full. If
you'd come last week I had the first floor back.' She seemed genuinely
distressed. She liked her quiet lodger and to turn away business of any
kind was always depressing.
Victoria felt dashed. She remembered Edward's consternation on
discovering the change in Gower Street and, for the first time,
sympathised.
'Oh, I'm so sorry too, Mrs Bell. I should like to have come back to
you.'
'Couldn't you wait until next month, mum!' said Mrs Bell, reluctant to
turn her away. 'The gentleman in the second floor front, he's going
away to Rhodesia. It's your old room, mum.'
'I'm afraid not,' said Victoria with a smile. 'In fact I must find
lodgings at once. Never mind, if I don't like them I'll come back here.
But can't you recommend somebody?'
Mrs Bell looked right and left, then into the archway. The little faded
woman had disappeared. The landlady in the billowy blouse was still
surveying the scene. Mrs Bell froze her with a single look.
'No, mum, can't say I know of anybody, leastways not here,' she said
slowly. 'It's a nice neighbourhood of course, but the houses here, they
look all right, but oh, mum, you should see their kitchens! Dirty ain't
the word, mum. But wait a bit, mum, if you wouldn't mind that, I've got
a sister who's got a very nice room. She lives in Castle Street, mum,
near Oxford Circus. It's a nice neighbourhood, of course not so near the
Park,' added Mrs Bell with conscious superiority.
'I don't mind, Mrs Bell,' said Victoria. 'I'm not fashionable.'
'Oh, mum,' cried Mrs Bell, endeavouring to imply together the
superiority of Portsea Place and the respectability of any street
patronised by her family, 'I'm sure you'll like it. I'll give you the
address.'
In a few minutes Victoria was speeding eastwards. Now she was rooted up
for good. She was leaving behind her Curran's and Mrs Bell, slender
links between her and home life, links still, however. The pageant of
London rolled by her, heaving, bursting with rich life. The sunshine
around her bade her be of good cheer. Then the cab turned a corner and,
with the suddenness of a stage effect, it carried its burden into the
haunts of darkness and malodour.